INTRODUCING:

PUBMED CENTRAL (PMC)

PubMed Central (PMC) is the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)
free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.

BY: ANDREA CRANE

SUBJECT AREA
PubMed Central (PMC) is a free archive of biomedical
and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National
Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine
(NIH/NLM).
In keeping with NLMs legislative mandate to collect
and preserve the biomedical literature, PMC serves as
a digital counterpart to NLMs extensive print journal
collection.
Launched in February 2000, PMC was developed and is
managed by NLMs National Center for Biotechnology
Information (NCBI).

KEY FEATURES
As an archive, PMC is designed to provide permanent
access to all of its content, even as technology evolves
and current digital literature formats potentially become
obsolete. NLM believes that the best way to ensure the
accessibility and viability of digital material over time is
through consistent and active use of the archive. For
this reason, free access to all of its journal literature is a
core principle of PMC.
PMC also includes final, peer-reviewed author
manuscripts by scientists and others who receive
research funding from NIH and other funding agencies.
PMC is not a publisher and does not publish journal
articles itself.

CONTENTS
In addition to its role as an archive, the value of
PMC lies in its capacity to store and crossreference data from diverse sources using a
common format within a single repository. With
PMC, a user can quickly search the entire
collection of full-text articles and locate all
relevant material.
PMC also allows for the integration of its
literature with a variety of other information
resources that can enhance the research and
knowledge fields of scientists, clinicians and
others.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

International Collaboration and Durability

NLM is collaborating internationally with other

agencies that share the goals of PMC. Maintaining
copies of PMCs literature in other reliable
international archives that operate on the same
principles provides greater protection against
damage or loss of the material. At the same time,
the diversity of sites allows for the possibility of
more and even greater innovation, ensuring the
permanence of PMC over the long-term.

SEARCH NARROWING

WHY IS PUBMED DIFFERENT FROM

OTHER DATABASES?
AS MOST DATABASES HAVE SOME OF THE SAME
FEATURES TO HELP STUDENTS WITH THEIR
RESEARCH TOPICS, PUBMED IS ZOOMED IN FOR
MOSTLY SCIENCE RELATED ARTICLES. HOWEVER,
IT OFFERS ADVANCED SEARCHES FOR PROTEINS,
PROTEIN STRUCTURES AND CHEMISTRY.

REFERENCES
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.lib.ottawa.edu/pmc/ab
out/intro/